Occupy Ft. Benning

By Dianne Mathiowetz
Columbus, Ga.

Thousands of demonstrators attached a large banner reading “Occupy Ft. Benning” to the tall barbed-wire fence separating them from base property here on Nov. 19.

Each year the crowd becomes more youthful and diverse as a more globally conscious generation learns about past and current graduates of the infamous U.S. training school for Latin American officers. The government renamed the School of the Americas the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. But that couldn’t hide the crimes of SOA trainees.

These include numerous massacres of peasants and Indigenous communities, targeted assassinations of union and religious leaders, coups against elected governments, wholesale suppression of civil liberties, mass detentions and “disappearances.” From Argentina and Chile to El Salvador and Honduras, the people refer to SOA as the “School of the Assassins.”

The SOA Watch, initiated by Father Roy Bourgeois in 1990, was motivated by the Nov. 16, 1989, murder of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her teen-age daughter by El Salvadoran soldiers, many of whom were trained in counterinsurgency tactics at the SOA.

Determined to close the training school and change U.S. foreign policy based on domination and militarism, SOA Watch has organized protests, held fasts, lobbied Congress, and educated and inspired thousands to become activists. Over the years, dozens of people have crossed onto the base in violation of federal law and served six-month prison sentences.

This year, 43-year-old Theresa Cusimano climbed a ladder propped against the fence and dropped down onto the grounds of Ft. Benning. She had been arrested and imprisoned in 2008 for a similar act of civil disobedience at the base.

The annual two-day SOA weekend consisted of a full schedule of workshops, films, meetings and a concert. A much-anticipated giant puppet parade completed the range of activities on Nov. 20. The action at the gates of Ft. Benning closed with a solemn procession of thousands who responded with the Spanish word “presente” after the names of hundreds and hundreds of victims killed by SOA-trained soldiers were intoned from the stage. For more information, go to www.soaw.org.

Protest at Stewart Detention Center

On Nov. 18, the day before the protest at Ft. Benning, some 270 people walked 1.5 miles in the fifth annual march and vigil at the Stewart Detention Center in nearby Lumpkin, Ga. Built and operated by Corrections Corporation of America, it is the largest privately run prison in the country, holding more than 1,900 men awaiting deportation.

There, activists heard Emily Guzman and Pedro Guzman tell of their ordeal with the immigration system. Pedro was held at Stewart for over 19 months, while Emily used the legal system and public pressure to win his release. “Free Pedro Guzman” was the main demand at the 2010 protest. Pedro described the many violations of basic human rights — from lack of medical care and poor food to guard misconduct and inadequate legal help. Both Emily and Pedro appealed to the crowd to continue to fight for immigrant rights and an end to private prisons.

Marching behind a bright yellow banner that read “No More Profits Off Our Pain! Shut Down Stewart Detention Center!” a contingent of women from Dalton, Ga., held a cord to which the names of more than 900 men from their town were attached. These workers — spouses, fathers, brothers, uncles, friends — had all been detained at Stewart and/or deported just in the past year from this north Georgia town, home to many carpet manufacturing and poultry processing plants.